Category: Muslim Community

The following leaflet was distributed at a London dayschool of HOPI this afternoon. A fuller report of some of the discussions at this meeting will be posted when time allows. But this content of the leaflet speaks for itself in terms of the politics of HOPI’s initators, the Communist Party of Great Britain/Weekly Worker.

This day-school of Hands off the People of Iran (HOPI) epitomises the politics of its initiators, the CPGB/Weekly Worker. A body dedicated to solidarity with the working class in Iran is in principle a good, if narrow, project.

The working class of the entire Middle East needs solidarity in many ways, against imperialist aggression and despotic and dictatorial regimes, pro-Western and ‘radical’. That Iran, not even its working class, but its ‘people’ is singled out as more deserving than elsewhere, reflects the CPGB’s ‘third camp’ ideology that treats ‘radical’ bourgeois regimes targeted by imperialism as co-equal with the imperialists themselves.

The following statement was issued by Left Unity in support of the candidacy of Rabina Khan for the position of elected mayor of Tower Hamlets in the upcoming mayoral election, which takes place in less-than-democratic conditions in the context of what amounts to a racist coup against the elected Mayor and council of Tower Hamlets, led by the Tory/Zionist minister Eric Pickles.

Some political background on this anti-democratic coup can be found in the recent Communist Explorations leaflet on this, and further useful material is to be found in this article by the Trotskyist group Socialist Fight on the same events.

The following leaflet was distributed at the ‘Reclaim Brixton’ event on 25 April

Ten years ago, the working class and oppressed of Tower Hamlets, including many of Muslim/South Asian migrant descent or background, struck an important political blow at imperialism and the Iraq War. They did this by electing George Galloway as MP for Bethnal Green and Bow in the 2005 General Election, for the left-wing anti-war RESPECT party.

That was very alarming to the rulers of this country, because Galloway had been expelled from Labour for taking a heroic position on the Iraq War, effectively calling for the Arab world to resist the Bush/Blair-led imperialist invasion by force.

The current General Election is taking place in conditions where British politics is in a state of more flux and fragmentation than not only in the lifetimes of those generations alive today, but also of previous generations. In some ways it is unprecedented: there are no apposite comparisons in the history of British capitalism. Both major parties, the Conservatives and Labour, are at such historically low levels of popularity that it is hard to imagine that either of them are likely to be able to achieve an overall majority in parliament even though we have an undemocratic first-past-the-post system that is biased to giving the party with a plurality of votes a crushing, undemocratic overall majority in parliament. It could not be absolutely ruled out that either party might just make it as a result of some event stampeding voters in either direction, but it is not something most people would like to take a bet on.

Here we see a remarkable indication of the shift in the focus and orientation of far right politics in the West, regarding the Jewish question, Muslims and the Middle East, and the strategic effect of this conflict in the imperialist world. Open encouragement from an overt and proud Israeli-Jewish reactionary for German nationalism and anti-Muslim extremism, at a PEGIDA rally in Frankfurt. It is inconceivable that this person just represents himself: he reflects the ideology of the Israeli government and the dominant political trends in Israel.

The British government’s blatant attempts to exploit the murder in France of the Charlie Hebdo staff and the other killings associated with it are both sinister in their implications, staggeringly hypocritical, and virulently racist in their own right. While Theresa May talks about the need to ‘wipe out anti-semitism’, David Cameron condemns the liberal Pope Francis as being too soft on Muslims who are outraged by pornographic depictions of Mohammad in Charlie Hebdo, and issues his own Downing Street encyclical on the ‘right to be offensive’ to Muslims (but not to Jews, obviously).

This reflects official practice: Muslim-baiting in this country has state-sanction, but not just bigotry against people of Jewish origin per se (which is reprehensible, but very marginal today), but also meaningful criticism of Jewish/Israeli racism against Arabs and Muslim people, or expressing appropriate, even though non-violent, anger against Israel and those who support it’s crimes against Arabs, is to be stigmatised and persecuted.

It should go without saying that the killing, apparently by militant Islamists, of the editors, journalists and cartoonists of Charlie Hebdo in Paris, should be condemned by the working class movement. The people responsible are guilty of some pretty heinous crimes and obviously need to be caught and prosecuted. As humanists, communists are opposed to such wanton killing of unarmed people, with the suffering that it will undoubtedly cause to those close to them. That much and no more should the working class movement stand formally with the mainstream politicians who are loudly condemning these killings.

We must condemn this action, not because it ‘outrages’ the sensibilities of the French government or its imperialist allies regarding ‘free speech’ or the alleged sanctity of human life – they have no respect for these things themselves. But we condemn it not least because it will inevitably result in an increase in anti-Muslim bigotry and hatred, and will lead to the victimisation of Muslims in France and elsewhere. Those who took this action, who appear to have had military know-how and training, no doubt will welcome such a reaction as it tends to further drive angry and alienated young Arab and African people of Muslim background towards them.